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This is one question I'm sure you've never been asked before! Doesn't matter if you've never even been to a dance concert, doesn't matter if you're left-brained, right-brained, or other -- I want your gut reaction about how to end this dance piece. Put yourself in the audience, and please just respond however it strikes you... No "wrong answers!!"
It's a modern dance about war -- to music of Astor Piazzolla, "Buenos Aires hora cero" (I recommend you hear it sometime, if you haven't!). It's got this military march-like theme underlying the whole piece, almost like a chant; and juxtaposed over that is this slow, plaintive melody that becomes a sort of cry overarching the military feeling.
People begin as individuals, suspicious of each other, wary, and fearful; as it builds, they form duos, then coagulate into three groups, then become two opposing groups, and finally one group fervently united against a common, unseen "enemy." (Along the way that 'cry' becomes individual expressions of remorse and conscience.)
In the final moments, the group advances toward their common "enemy" -- moving straight toward the audience in unison, in a horizontal line forward across the stage. The leader, at center, whistles every few beats, calling the ranks on. But one by one, they stop, and look up over their left shoulders, freezing there (instruments drop out in the music) and it all thins until finally, only the leader is left, and then even the leader stops, and looks up....
There's a beat of silence, and then a sound like a missile falling -- a high pitch descending over about 2 seconds (they follow that sound with their eyes and heads across the ceiling), and then a BANG! -- end of piece.
What's that last moment, what's the picture? Please tell me your sense of that "bang!" -- the last image, the last impression the audience has. It's only half a second before lights-out, but in a way it's the whole piece.
(The only thing I do not want is for them to fall prone on the floor -- too literal, and every other dance piece seems to end that way.)
1. They could all cover their heads, their human fear of death superceding their aggression.
2. They could all look at the audience with wide eyes, saying "it's about YOU."
3. They could all look straight up above their own heads, leaving what "falls down" to the imagination, and grabbing that programmed "heavenward" thing.
4. Some other gesture... If there were one micro-second's "BANG" in a futile, fear-propelled war, what would that look like? Please tell me what comes to mind!
I figure I can post something this odd in the middle of the night :)
No wrong answers -- what would the "BANG" feel like to you?
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